bilbobaggins wrote:I, a Boalt student, wish my school had a higher LSAT IQ.

Seriously? Do you feel like the student body isn't as qualified? Honest question as I'm considering Boalttt.

Hahaha, no, not seriously at all. It's a play on a couple of the memes floating around TLS (and the ridiculous concept of "LSAT IQ.")

The student body is incredibly qualified. As qualified as any other law school out there. Come visit.

Edit to address the second query: The LSAT is a good indicator until you start splitting hairs over a few points. You can say whatever you want to about GPA, but it requires a more consistent effort over a much longer period of time than the LSAT (and this is coming from someone below my class's GPA 25th percentile and at 75th for LSAT).

As I've said on TLS many times over, Boalt gets kids who could've gone to Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc. TLS is a tiny portion of the law school universe and many students choose against rankings. I will also say that Boalt students (as most T14 students) have incredible backgrounds, regardless of LSAT or GPA and to be honest, background is much more convincing than a single score or a GPA. I hate to say this to TLS's generally in UG population, but most of my classmates who have a couple of years out of school are almost more qualified by default. They understand how to think critically on the job, deal with other people and are usually less sheltered. It's usually those straight out of UG that have higher "LSAT IQs," but are way less interesting or competent when you actually speak with them.

Again, someone's worth as a practicing lawyer does not often correlate with their grades in law school or where they went. The insular nature of this site and the lack of first hand experience generates the opposite perception.

I'm bumping myself to address the ridiculous comment about "qualified" or "intellectually capable" based on a few points in the 97th to 99th percentile LSAT range.

Last edited by bilbobaggins on Thu Feb 25, 2010 3:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

bilbobaggins wrote:Hahaha, no, not seriously at all. It's a play on a couple of the memes floating around TLS (and the ridiculous concept of "LSAT IQ.")

Doesn't IQ stand for interquartile? I know most law students are math/stats noobs, but really...anyone who has taken basic stats would get it.

But isn't it abbreviated IQR? And, if you were displaying the interquartile range, why would you show the median? But, now that you mention it, I do think the guy who used it meant interquartile and not intelligence quotient.

bilbobaggins wrote:I, a Boalt student, wish my school had a higher LSAT IQ.

Seriously? Do you feel like the student body isn't as qualified? Honest question as I'm considering Boalttt.

Hahaha, no, not seriously at all. It's a play on a couple of the memes floating around TLS (and the ridiculous concept of "LSAT IQ.")

The student body is incredibly qualified. As qualified as any other law school out there. Come visit.

Edit to address the second query: The LSAT is a good indicator until you start splitting hairs over a few points. You can say whatever you want to about GPA, but it requires a more consistent effort over a much longer period of time than the LSAT (and this is coming from someone below my class's GPA 25th percentile and at 75th for LSAT).

As I've said on TLS many times over, Boalt gets kids who could've gone to Yale, Harvard, Stanford, etc. TLS is a tiny portion of the law school universe and many students choose against rankings. I will also say that Boalt students (as most T14 students) have incredible backgrounds, regardless of LSAT or GPA and to be honest, background is much more convincing than a single score or a GPA. I hate to say this to TLS's generally in UG population, but most of my classmates who have a couple of years out of school are almost more qualified by default. They understand how to think critically on the job, deal with other people and are usually less sheltered. It's usually those straight out of UG that have higher "LSAT IQs," but are way less interesting or competent when you actually speak with them.

Again, someone's worth as a practicing lawyer does not often correlate with their grades in law school or where they went. The insular nature of this site and the lack of first hand experience generates the opposite perception.

I'm bumping myself to address the ridiculous comment about "qualified" or "intellectually capable" based on a few points in the 97th to 99th percentile LSAT range.

i was actually hoping to find a better counterargument than just a weak attempt at extolling a more subjective, statistically less useful metric than the LSAT. yes, the gpa does represent a longer body of work than 3.5 hours. thank you lol.

that said, this isn't "splitting hairs," in my opinion. "splitting hairs" would be arguing that CLS is better than chicago because of that one point difference. however, here we are talking about a 95th percentile median vs 99th percentile medians with fairly large sample sizes. any stats nerd will tell you that in this case, we can draw some basic conclusions about which class on balance is more adept at the skills one needs to perform in law school.

that some handful of kids end up choosing boalt over stanford and yale actually has no bearing on my point. boalt has chosen to make a specific trade off with respect to the kind of kids they want, so lets be perfectly honest about both the pros and cons of that decision.

APimpNamedSlickback wrote:i was actually hoping to find a better counterargument than just a weak attempt at extolling a more subjective, statistically less useful metric than the LSAT. yes, the gpa does represent a longer body of work than 3.5 hours. thank you lol.

that said, this isn't "splitting hairs," in my opinion. "splitting hairs" would be arguing that CLS is better than chicago because of that one point difference. however, here we are talking about a 95th percentile median vs 99th percentile medians with fairly large sample sizes. any stats nerd will tell you that in this case, we can draw some basic conclusions about which class on balance is more adept at the skills one needs to perform in law school.

that some handful of kids end up choosing boalt over stanford and yale actually has no bearing on my point. boalttt has chosen to make some specific trade off with respect to the kind of kids they want, so lets be perfectly honest about both the pros and cons of that decision.

If you honestly think that someone's "intellectual capability" can be measure by the LSAT, we have absolutely no middle ground to meet at.

If you think the difference between someone getting a 167 on test day and a 172 on test day means that the person with the 172 is more "intellectually capable" than the person with the 167, you're again living in an LSAT fantasy land.

I mean, I guess you'd have to define intellectually capable, but what I take it to mean is - someone who exercises their intelligence in a way that impacts the real world in a positive way, be it through law, business, public interest, art or whatever. If you mean it in terms of how someone performs on a single test on a single date, well, that's a definition that's so narrow it's not even worth discussing.

The LSAT is a standardized test. It's moderately more learnable than many of the others, but it still has the evaluative weaknesses of any standardized test. If you can't understand this, then I'd begin to question your own "intellectual capabilities."

The view you're extolling is an extremely narrow-minded and self-constraining one. Everyone should be proud of their high LSAT scores, but to assume that a 172 shows you're more "intellectually capable" than someone with a 167 is nonsense. Wait until you show up in court one day and get whooped by someone who went to a TTT, or miss the promotion when the guy who graduated from Notre Dame beats you for it. I generally wouldn't take the time to make this kind of response on TLS, but it's such a number-whore group-think site at this point, someone needs to present an alternative perspective.

I know it gets killed on here a lot, but I actually think GPA is as good or better of a metric than the LSAT. Once you get above a 168 or so on the LSAT, you "know" the logic--it's more of a speed thing (being able to correctly answer questions in a given amount of time). GPA, in my opinion, proves you're willing to work and do what is necessary to get a result, which is more important given a requisite "knowledge" of logic.

GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

Well, to be fair to slick, the relationship between the LSAT and 1L performance is stronger than the relationship between GPA and 1L performance because there is a higher "r" for the first. I think the relationship is still only moderately strong (r is not 0.9 or anything like that), but it is still higher for LSAT/1L performance. I think the R is around 0.5, so for every SD of LSAT increase leads to an increase of 0.5 SD in 1L performance (GPA or whatever).

Last edited by fortissimo on Thu Feb 25, 2010 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

fortissimo wrote:Well, to be fair to slick, the relationship between the LSAT and 1L performance is stronger than the relationship between GPA and 1L performance because there is a higher "r" for the first.

I know it does, but classes in law school are also generally one-test affairs, from what I understand?

fortissimo wrote:Well, to be fair to slick, the relationship between the LSAT and 1L performance is stronger than the relationship between GPA and 1L performance because there is a higher "r" for the first.

I know it does, but classes in law school are also generally one-test affairs, from what I understand?

We also would need to see the difference in performance based on a few LSAT points at the end of the spectrum. Has anyone actually read the research that stat comes from?

fortissimo wrote:Well, to be fair to slick, the relationship between the LSAT and 1L performance is stronger than the relationship between GPA and 1L performance because there is a higher "r" for the first. I think the relationship is still only moderately strong (r is not 0.9 or anything like that), but it is still higher for LSAT/1L performance. I think the R is around 0.5, so for every SD of LSAT increase leads to an increase of 0.5 SD in 1L performance (GPA or whatever).

Kronk wrote:I know it gets killed on here a lot, but I actually think GPA is as good or better of a metric than the LSAT. Once you get above a 168 or so on the LSAT, you "know" the logic--it's more of a speed thing (being able to correctly answer questions in a given amount of time). GPA, in my opinion, proves you're willing to work and do what is necessary to get a result, which is more important given a requisite "knowledge" of logic.

GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

Success is 10% raw ability, 90% work ethic. I tend to think that the LSAT is more indicative of one's inherent analytical ability (which is undeniably essential in law school) while GPA is more indicative of one's work ethic. Both metrics have some merit, but neither is a good indicator of how successful of a law student or attorney/judge/professor/etc one will be (just look at the r^2-values).

Berkeley likes to focus on GPA and soft factors more than LSAT. I don't see what's wrong with that, and I don't know how this indicates that the student body at Boalt is worse than the students bodies at Columbia/Chicago.

fortissimo wrote:Well, to be fair to slick, the relationship between the LSAT and 1L performance is stronger than the relationship between GPA and 1L performance because there is a higher "r" for the first.

I know it does, but classes in law school are also generally one-test affairs, from what I understand?

Yes, but you're bringing in another variable that doesn't really refute my point. We are talking about the correlation between GPA/LSAT and 1L performance, not the first two variables with job performance. Since getting the job--based solely off 1L grades a lot of the time--is a prerequisite to performing on the job, it doesn't really make sense to jump the boat so to speak.

A lot of the time in biglaw, according to what I've heard from profs, etc., you have very cramped deadlines. 2-day brief deadlines are not unusual.

fortissimo wrote:Well, to be fair to slick, the relationship between the LSAT and 1L performance is stronger than the relationship between GPA and 1L performance because there is a higher "r" for the first.

I know it does, but classes in law school are also generally one-test affairs, from what I understand?

Yes, but you're bringing in another variable that doesn't really refute my point. We are talking about the correlation between GPA/LSAT and 1L performance, not the first two variables with job performance. Since getting the job--based solely off 1L grades a lot of the time--is a prerequisite to performing on the job, it doesn't really make sense to jump the boat so to speak.

A lot of the time in biglaw, according to what I've heard from profs, etc., you have very cramped deadlines. 2-day brief deadlines are not unusual.

2-days is different than 35 minutes. I know that there are deadlines--but that is more akin to turning in a paper for a class than taking an LSAT. What Bilbo and I are saying is that once you get above the 95th percentile or so, we wonder how much of a difference it makes in 1L performance. That's why it'd be nice to know what the standard deviations were.

FWIW: I'm not directing any of this at Slickback, he is going to rock HLS til they shut the place down. Just fyi.

Kronk wrote:GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

I agree. If I was an adcomm, I would totally take 3.9/168 over 3.5/172 every single time (ceteris paribus).

Kronk wrote:GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

I agree. If I was an adcomm, I would totally take 3.9/168 over 3.5/172 every single time (ceteris paribus).

That's the path to a full class of English/Poli-sci majors at every top school while the future IP lawyers languish in TTT hell. I like the way it is right now better, personally

Kronk wrote:GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

I agree. If I was an adcomm, I would totally take 3.9/168 over 3.5/172 every single time (ceteris paribus).

That's the path to a full class of English/Poli-sci majors at every top school while the future IP lawyers languish in TTT hell. I like the way it is right now better, personally

Kronk wrote:GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

I agree. If I was an adcomm, I would totally take 3.9/168 over 3.5/172 every single time (ceteris paribus).

That's the path to a full class of English/Poli-sci majors at every top school while the future IP lawyers languish in TTT hell. I like the way it is right now better, personally

Kronk wrote:GPA, in my opinion, is all hard work. Some majors are easier than others, but getting A's is not easy regardless of major, in my opinion. Might be easier to get a B in a liberal arts class than an engineering class, but I generally think A's are equally hard across all areas. As a double major in a serious science and a serious liberal arts major, I feel qualified to make that assertion (at least for my University). Not many cases go to court, and those moments that require improvisational logical thinking that need to be done in a short amount of time are pretty rare. I would take the bright person who understands the logic, but might take a bit more time, assuming that the second person works harder consistently.

I agree. If I was an adcomm, I would totally take 3.9/168 over 3.5/172 every single time (ceteris paribus).

That's the path to a full class of English/Poli-sci majors at every top school while the future IP lawyers languish in TTT hell. I like the way it is right now better, personally

I don't know, what's more impressive to you--2 to three questions on the LSAT (difference between 168-172) or hundreds of studying hours, knowledge gained, etc (difference between a 3.5 - 3.9).

Being an engineer or a science major doesn't excuse bad GPAs. I have two majors, Ethnic Studies and MCDB (Mollecular Cellular Developmental Bio). The average GPA for ES is a 2.83, the average GPA for MCDB is a 3.10. The average engineer GPA is a 2.92. Just sayin.